For example, more than 50 percent of white evangelicals, white mainline Protestants and white Catholics thought “radical life extension” was a bad thing. But more than 50 percent of black Protestants thought it was a good thing. And 49 percent of those who believe in an after-life also thought this was good.

To me, that latter finding was the most interesting part of the survey. More people who believe in an after-life liked the concept than those who don't believe in an after-life. (Fifty-eight percent of the latter thought extending life up to 120 years or so is not a good thing.)

WILLIAM NOAKES, Attorney, Adjunct Professor, Cox School of Business and M. Div. Student, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

For everything there is a season…a time to be born, a time to die.

- Eccl. 3:1 (NRSV)

Asked whether I support radical life extension – living to 100 and beyond – my initial reaction was, of course. I do. Who wouldn’t want to live a longer life? For if God grants us the gift of life, how could adding more years to this gift be objectionable?

Upon further reflection, I find I must qualify my response. Yes, I would support radical life extension but the efforts to extend life must be hedged around by a sense of equity. That is, the poor and powerless must have the same access to the magic elixir as the rich and powerful. In a world where economic inequality already exists, how much greater might it be if the currency were time and not money?

The 2011 movie, In Time, is a perfect illustration of such inequity. In a world where time is a consumer good paid out one minute at a time, the rich and powerful can buy more – potentially living forever – while the poor and powerless are consigned to early death. If radical life extension is to be, it must be provided upon a fair and equitable basis – available to all regardless of race, gender, class, or nationality.

The efforts to extend life must also compensate for the potential imbalance between the gifts of youth and those of age – the exuberance and creativity of youth versus the calm and patient wisdom of old age. Again, recalling the movie, In Time, life’s vibrancy –reflected in the vivid colors and the frenetic activity of the ghetto, Dayton – is juxtaposed against the staid and monochromatic world of New Greenwich – the home of the rich and powerful. In extending life,we must account for the difference between youth and the aged.

Look around us to the innovations we enjoy. In technology, art, literature and beyond, they were largely the product of youth. In technology, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were barely out of their teens when they created Microsoft and Apple. Jackson Pollock, one of America’s great 20th Century artists, painted his greatest works in his 30s and was dead at age 44. F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, two of America’s greatest novelists, wrote some of their best works in their 20s.

Contrast the ages of the innovators to those of the protectors of the status quo, e.g., U.S. senators, and you will see the potential danger of extending life without extending the creative period of youth. The population of the 100 members of the Senate, where little seems to get done these days, skews significantly older than that of the creative class. Today, the Senate has one 80+ year old; 21 Senators 70 or older; 37 who are 60 or older; 29 who are 50 or older; and 12 who are in their 40s. The average age of a senator is 62.

What would the world be like if the creative period of humanity stays the same — roughly ending at age 40 – and the rest of life is extended another 30 years? Absent some balancing mechanism in the radical life extension process, we may shift the balance of life such that the innovation and creativity become a less prevalent part of our lives – potentially to the world’s detriment. In conclusion, while I celebrate the effort to radically extend the lives of mankind,
it must be done equitably; must not reduce mankind’s creativity and innovation; and should hearken to the words of Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.”

In a culture that so often devalues life, I find it interesting that some people value life so much that they want to lengthen it. Seeking to extend life is an indication that life is treasured and worth continuing. The Bible teaches repeatedly that life is a gift from God.

As opposed to all other forms of life, human beings were created by God in a unique and special way. Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Animal life and plant life are valuable and important, but not on an equal plane with people.Human beings alone, no matter their religious background or economic condition, have been blessed with “imago dei” and only people can know personally their Creator God by placing faith in His Son Jesus.

I am curious to learn the motivations behind the attempts at radical life extension. Extending earthly life for the purpose of broadening one’s ability to serve God and bless others is a worthy goal. Extending earthly life so one can enjoy more years of laziness or relaxation or pleasure is vanity at its highest. We were not placed on this earth to impress others or promote ourselves. We each were given life to obey the greatest commandment of Jesus, to love God and love one another. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 16:19)

Advances in science and medicine continue to reveal how complex and well designed the human body is. The Creator of the Universe planned the cosmos and the human body with amazing levels of expertise and attention to detail. Psalm 139:14-16 records a beautiful prayer from the created to the Creator, admitting that God is the originator of life, the crafter of its qualities, and the possessor of its boundaries. “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” A world that denies the existence of God assumes that we are either here accidentally or of our own doing. Neither is true and neither can be true.

Psalm 39:4 reminds us that earthly life, even when extended by scientific advances, is exceedingly brief when compared to the infinite length of eternal life. “Lord, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am.” Followers of Jesus, no matter the length of their earthly life, have placed their hope and trust in the next life. As Paul wrote in Philippians 1:21, “For to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

Do I want to live forever? Yes. I want to live forever in the presence of my Savior. I want to live, and I want others to live, in the destination Jesus described in John 14:2-3. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

It doesn't make sense to me that the possibility of “radical life extension” should be rejected because it is “cheating death” or “playing God.” Decades of living have been added to life expectancy over the ages, due in large degree to advancements in medicine. Infant mortality rates have been lowered; many diseases have been all but eliminated. These developments have not only made our lives longer, they have made them better. We can bond with our children when they are born, expecting them to live. We have less reason to move about the world tentatively, concerned we will contract polio or die of the flu.

What I think of, when I imagine the eradication of cancer, is not only the lengthening of life but the lessening of grief. I have walked with two close family members who successfully battled cancer, as well as with a handful of friends, some who are still alive and some who are not. One of my friends, Deanna Thompson, is living with fourth-stage breast cancer. She is in her forties, has two children, and is in year five of the struggle. She tells her story in her book, “Hoping For More.” The eradication of cancer? Bring it on, for my friend and her family. Take away the undercurrent of worry, the constant checking of the cancer markers. Give them MORE life. And more life to us all. The life God desires for us. The abundant life Christ promises.

Some of those commenting on the ethics of radical life extension register concern that it might mean a bunch of elderly people filling the planet with “no room for youth.” My hope would be, in contrast to this, that life extension would extend youth, creating more space and time for being young.

As Charles Wiley from the Presbyterian Church (USA) says, there is no reason to fear science, as people of faith. God can certainly work through science. As long as living long does not become the only thing that matters – as long as it does not become an idol – I say, again: Bring it on!

RIC DEXTER, Nichiren Buddhist area leader, Soka Gakkai-USA

My great-grandfather lived 106 years. In his final years he delighted the younger kids with the tales of his life, some of them were even true. The older kids benefited from some of the wisdom those years had imparted. To him, of course, everyone in the room was a kid. The kids who were in their maturity learned of some of the mistakes he had made, and what he learned from them.

In a letter to an elderly follower in the 13th century, Nichiren encouraged her saying “One extra day of life is worth more than all the treasures of the universe.” Taken on its face this would seem to indicate that extending one’s life by decades would be of incalculable value. The question though is not how many days you have, but how you use those days. Quality is the true value, not quantity.

A Buddhist perspective looks at each day we have on this earth as an opportunity to fulfill the vow of the bodhisattva. That vow is to free others from their sufferings. In other words, the greatest value in life lies in the desire to live and work for the benefit of others. The more days we have, the more opportunities. Thus extending life-span is better.

If we do not use those extra days for a purpose beyond our own enjoyment, or simply as delay of the inevitable, an extended life span has no purpose.

Whether extending our life span is a positive thing really depends on what we learn to do with that life. My Sensei explained “There is a great difference between simply living a long life and living a full and rewarding life. What’s really important is how much rich texture and color we can add to our lives during our stay here on Earth—however long that stay may be.”

PHILIP JENKINS, Distinguished Professor of History, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University

Would I want to live forever? The short answer: Sure! But on what terms?

Christians, like many other religious believers, certainly hope to live forever, and retain their individual identity. Other believers hope for eternal life as part of their people, in a group identity. Both of those groups, though, see extended life in supernatural terms. Extended life on this earth is quite another matter.

As in so many things, this question was discussed and resolved by Jonathan Swift, some three hundred years ago. In 1726, his Gulliver’s Travels imagined the immortal tribe of the struldbrugs, who live on the imaginary Pacific island of Luggnagg. At first, Gulliver is delighted to imagine such wonderful people, and he speculates on what he might do himself if he was blessed with that immortality – all the things he could learn, all the books he could read, how much could he benefit society. “I should be a living treasure of knowledge and wisdom, and certainly become the oracle of the nation.”

But then he discovers the dreadful conditions under which the struldbrugs live. Yes, they live forever, but in a kind of extended living death, or perpetual senility. At age eighty, they lose their eyesight, and their hair. “As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal … They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described.” Merely extending life is a horrific threat, not a promise.

So, no thanks, I won’t be a struldbrug.

More modern prophets of longevity know that extended life has to be combined with special added talents. As the goal of future science, acid guru Timothy Leary proposed the formula of SMI²LE – Space Migration, Intelligence Squared, Life Extension. Yes, we should extend our lives, but only if we could vastly expand our intelligence, perhaps through a kind of merger with machine intelligence. But the consequence of all those undying geniuses would be that the tired old earth would fill up very fast indeed, and the only way to save the race would be to spread through the solar system and the nearby stars.

Human beings of infinite lifespan, vast intelligence, wandering between the worlds – as Leary realized, it’s an image of near divinity.

Space migration presently seems off the table, but plenty of modern writers imagine the coming of superintelligence, which would incorporate human minds, through an apocalyptic event they envision as the Singularity. Humanity would continue, but outside their (now obsolete) bodies. It would be immortality of a special kind. Some foretell the Singularity as a certainty before 2050, perhaps earlier.

Don’t let anyone tell you that scientific visionaries lack a traditional sense of the messianic, or the apocalyptic. If they say these are not religious visions, they are kidding themselves.

In short, I think that present day advocates of simple “radical life extension” are remarkably unambitious, when you consider the other schemes that are out there.

Traditional religious believers, though, need to remind the world that there is an excellent case to be made in favor of death, as the culmination of nature. Maybe they should borrow the title of Clifford Simak’s wonderful science fiction novel: Why Call Them Back From Heaven?

JOE CLIFFORD, Head of Staff and Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church of Dallas

Life is a precious gift; and death is part of life. It is not to be feared, it is to be faced by us all.

From the standpoint of faith, death is not the enemy. It is the end of our existence in one realm.

From a practical standpoint, our death makes room for the birth of the next generation. Radical life extension is ultimately a selfish decision as it disregards the needs of future generations. Our planet is already strained by a population of over 6 billion people. In our nation, the health care crisis is directly connected to the amount of money spent in the last year of life. Medicare spends 30% of its total budget on the 1% of beneficiaries who die each year.

Decisions about end of life matters are ultimately up to individuals and their physicians, but we must realize that at some point it is a faithful decision to say, “I’ve fought the good fight, I’ve finished my work,” and to pass the torch on to the next generation. For their sake, radical life extension is a bad idea.

I am sorry to say, but this is a scam, a post-dated check and a grant plea.

The science community would like us to believe that they can solve all problems of life including the major ones such as death, disease, and old age. This is much like the Ford horseless carriage advertisements of the 1900s that claimed automobiles could solve America's pollution problem. It would rid the streets of horse manure. Yet still people will invest and despite scientific advancements the death rate in America remains a steady 100%.

Back to the question. In the ancient Śrīmad Bhāgavatam it is stated. “What is the value of a prolonged life which is wasted, inexperienced by years in this world? Better a moment of full consciousness, because that gives one a start in searching after his supreme interest.”

This material world is like a hotel. When staying overnight at a hotel a wise person does not remodel his room. Similarly those who are wise to not try to make permanent plans to stay in the temporary material world. They are invested in the eternal for they are eternal. That which is eternal can never be satisfied with the temporary.

This issue of chasing after the temporary goes back to the root problem of life: People misidentify the self/soul with this temporary ever changing material body, this is called ignorance.

Before we go extending life, let’s focus first on cherishing the one we have. What is the use of extending life when our culture is so eager to snuff it out? Television and films display weapons like emblems, the blood of murder flows like water. Even superhero movies have scenes where tens of thousands die in seconds. Our military budget, which equals those of the next dozen countries combines, is slated not for defense, but wars of aggression. Besides, what’s the use of life extension when we’re rapidly trashing the planet upon which our lives depend?

WILLIAM LAWRENCE, Dean and Professor of American Church History, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

When I was a young pastor in Pennsylvania, I frequently visited a church member who was in her middle 90’s. Her health was reasonably good, except for a history of kidney stones. With a twinkle in her eye, she enjoyed telling me the treatment plan recommended by her doctor was that she drink a glass of beer every day. Within her generational cohort of Methodists, a majority of whom were opposed to drinking alcohol, the idea of drinking beer under doctor’s orders was an opportunity to stretch the boundaries placed on life.

But there was one boundary she did not want to expand. In a thoughtful conversation one day, she told me that there actually was no great pleasure in nearing the age of 100. She said that all of her friends were dead. The family members or neighbors with whom she could interact had no personal recollection of the events that were important to her. A physical capacity for survival past one’s centennial year, even with reasonably good health, was not a prospect that brought her joy.

What Christians affirm about “eternal life” or “resurrection” is not a matter of extending the years of one’s existence. “Transformation” is the key word in understanding Christian belief about eternity. Is one living and experiencing a truly transformed life? If one has hope for a transformed life after having “threescore years and ten” or “fourscore” (Psalm 90:10 King James Version) or even a century on earth, that is of interest for Christianity. Chronological expansion is not.

But Christian values also insist that the theoretical possibility for extending the span of human life will require the community to be prepared for the care of those who add decades to their existence. What social institutions and economic resources will be needed to support a growing populace that lives to 115 or 120?

It is one thing to ponder how long any of us might want to live on earth as individuals. It is another thing to ponder whether we are ready to meet the needs of everyone who lives as long as they might wish.

Here's what surprised me most: In no category — Protestant, Catholic, attend worship or not, believe in afterlife or not, believe in God or not — did a majority say radical life extension (RLE) would be a “good thing.” (The only exception: Black Protestants, by 54 percent.) I expected the percentage to be much higher, especially among those with no afterlife commitment.

Then I read further: Among those who say RLE is “bad for society,” 72% believe the “treatments would be fundamentally unnatural”; 80% say they would “strain natural resources”; 72% say only the “wealthy would have access to these treatments”; and 70% say medical scientists would offer RLE before they “understood health effects.”

Here's my conclusion: A majority of Americans, whatever their faith commitments, reject RLE because they don't trust the way it will be made available or administered. I share their concern.

In 1900, life expectancy at birth was 46.3 years for males and 48.3 years for females.

Today it is 76 years and 81 years, respectively. How many of the medical advances that have extended our lives would have been viewed as “cheating death” 100 years ago?

Medical science is one way we are to “work” (abad in Hebrew, to nurture and sustain) and “keep” (shamar, to protect and preserve) God's creation (Genesis 2:15).

But medicine is also subject to abuse (eugenics, for example) and unintended consequences (Thalidomide, used to treat morning sickness, can cause birth defects). I don't believe we are “playing God” to advance medical science, provided we consult God as we do.

This is a question that does become complicated as our ability to sustain life increases and at varying qualities. Considering the average length of age in the first century was in the forties — if one made it to the age of five; otherwise it was in the twenties — we can sense an element of relativity in the question. To the extent medicine cures us of disease and allows us to live longer (and often with a good quality of life), then this is a good and acceptable thing. The only place where this would be problematic is if quality of life is not really enhanced but is extremely diminished.

The danger here is that we move into a realm where euthanasia comes into play. The “withholding of radical care” is something doctors wrestle with today. The options may only intensify. Hopefully people will think about making their personal intentions clear so that the burden for deciding these cases falls on those who should have the moral choice whether to pursue radical care or not. As to whether this is desirable or not, as long as lives are self-sustaining, the answer is yes. However long we are talking about, it pales in the face of eternity, which once it starts does run for a very long time!

MATTHEW WILSON, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Southern Methodist University

In this discussion, we have to keep in mind what “radical life extension” does and doesn't promise. It does offer the prospect of extending human life expectancy by several decades; it does NOT promise physical immortality.

In that sense, while it would present a whole host of social, political, economic, and technological challenges, it does not change the basic moral or existential calculus in any profound way. We are still, and will always be, physically mortal beings whose allotted time on Earth is momentary in the scope of God and the cosmos.

Whether that time is 40, 80, or 120 years does not alter this fundamental reality. In a sense, we have already “cheated death” as a species by nearly doubling human life expectancy over the last 500 years, mostly through improvements in sanitation, better nutrition, much safer childbirth, and the discovery of some basic medicines (chiefly antibiotics). No one seems to find these advances, and the dramatic increases in average human longevity that accompanied them, to be morally problematic. I don't see a continued extension of human lifespans through morally licit technologies (that is, excluding cloning, embryo harvesting, etc.) to be different in any profound way.

So yes, I would be happy to embrace “radical life extension,” both societally and personally, as long as it offers the prospect of a life in reasonably sound physical and mental health. It doesn't change the fundamentals of a Christian worldview: our time on Earth is still finite, and our true immortality is as souls created and sustained by an eternal God. Extending physical life is fine, as long as it doesn't stem from the conviction that “this is all there is.” That's a bleak outlook no matter how long one's allotted time.

The ability to extend life is a beautiful gift from God and he wants us to enjoy the good things he has bestowed on us. Indeed, we are discovering beneficence in everything that surrounds us to enhance the quality of our life. That includes living longer. Of course, I want to live forever, but stagnancy may not be in creators plan.

The scriptures and traditions extol the gift of life. “Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission.” Native American theory of existence.

II Corinthians 9:8, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and provide in abundance for every good work”.

Quran 55:4-10, “He has created man and imparted unto him articulate thought and speech; and has spread earth out for all living beings.”

Bhagvad Gita 7:21, “if a person desires to have material enjoyment and wants to have such facilities from the material demigods, the Supreme Lord gives.”

Torah, 33:1, “ There is a closing benediction for all the tribes in which Moses reminds them of the abundance they are to enjoy and the goodness that God has bestowed upon them.”

Sikhism: “Giving or enhancing life through organ donation is both consistent with, and in the spirit of Sikh teachings.”

Not too long ago, when you reached 50 you were considered old. In the year 1900, life expectancy in the United States was 46 years, and it jumped to 65 in 1950, and by the turn of the century it was 74. The Center for Disease Control places life expectancy at 78.7 years now, whereas the average life expectancy in 1776 was 35 years.

Advances in public health, lower infant mortality, disease control and healthy living have contributed to living longer. Indeed it has more than doubled since our independence. In the first 125 years we increased the life expectancy by a mere 11 years, whereas in the next 113 years it went up by 32 years. Life expectancy has nearly tripled!

We are not “cheating death” as the title of an Atlantic piece suggests. Life is God’s gift, and to protect and preserve it is a moral obligation. Thanks to the advancements in science and technology, we can appreciate the creator even more. Quran 55:13, “Which, then, of your Sustainer's gifts can you disavow?”

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The Texas Faith blog is a discussion among formal and informal religious leaders whose faith traditions express a belief in a transcendent power – or the possibility of one. While all readers are invited to participate in this blog, by responding in the comments section, discussion leaders are those whose religion involves belief in a divine higher power or those who may not believe in a transcendent power but leave room for the possibility of one. Within this framework, moderators William McKenzie and Wayne Slater seek to bring a diversity of thinkers onto the Texas Faith panels.